Trapping the Bush team

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
What do erstwhile Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein and the Vice Chairman
of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Jay Rockefeller, have in
common? They both seem to have been so keen to defeat George W. Bush that
their subordinates resorted to laying traps for the President and his
administration.

According to press reports, Saddam personally endorsed the
initiative conjured up by senior Iraqi intelligence officers involving an
11th-hour deal to stave off Operation Iraqi Freedom. One can be forgiven
for wondering whether Senator Rockefeller also had prior knowledge of the
trap described in a memorandum written by his staff - involving the cynical
use of the Intelligence Committee's traditional non-partisanship for
political advantage at the President's expense. After all, the Senator
adamantly refuses to disavow this memo or its contents.

The Iraqi dictator clearly hoped that he would be able to do to Bush
43 what he did to Bush 41: Outlast him. Saddam must have calculated that
he could survive the son's efforts to topple him, just as he did the
father's, by offering some last-minute concessions via a trusted
interlocutor, Bush II Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle.

The bait? At a meeting last March in London, a Lebanese-American
interlocutor told Mr. Perle that, among other things: two thousand FBI
agents could enter Iraq to look around for weapons of mass destruction
(WMD); a terrorist wanted in connection with the first World Trade Center
attack (who happened to be living in Iraq!) would be turned over to the
U.S.; and elections could be held in Iraq in two years.

Fortunately, as Mr. Perle said on ABC's Sunday news program "This
Week," this gambit was recognized by the Bush Administration as the "trap"
it was. U.S. weapons inspectors would likely have fared no better in trying
to find the unaccounted-for Iraqi WMD in Saddam's police state than did
their UN counterparts. (Even after Saddam was toppled, 1200 military and
other personnel have thus far been stymied in their search for more than
evidence of related manufacturing programs and concealment efforts.)

Understanding the danger posed by a state-sponsor of terror, the
Administration was also unmoved by the offer of a single terrorist (even a
most-wanted one), just as it understood the dubious value of any elections
Saddam would be willing to allow. After all, he had won the last one with
100% of the vote!

As for the Rockefeller staff initiative, a Democratic colleague from
Indiana, Sen. Evan Bayh, has observed that the Intelligence Committee's Vice
Chair has been under intense pressure to use the panel for partisan
purposes. Evidently, the hope has been that Democrats would also be able
to do to Bush 43 what they did to Bush 41 in 1992: Deprecate his military
victory as incomplete or otherwise flawed and seek to elicit at the polls a
vote of no-confidence in his leadership.

Since the Rockefeller staff memo was revealed last week by
talk-radio and television host Sean Hannity, the nature of the trap it
proposed for President Bush has been the topic of intense debate on and off
Capitol Hill. What has not been explicitly recognized is that the plan -
the trap - envisioned by this memo is already far advanced.

Last July, the Intelligence Committee took extensive testimony from
senior Defense Department officials concerning the nature of the
intelligence in hand before Iraqi Freedom was launched, how it was handled
within the Bush Administration and whether it was manipulated, hyped or
otherwise distorted so as to induce Members of Congress or the public to
support an otherwise unwarranted war against Saddam Hussein.

In late September, Committee Chairman Pat Roberts agreed to a
further request for information from Sen. Rockefeller. It took the form of
a joint letter sent to the Pentagon asking additional questions. In the
course of preparing this letter, however, Senator Roberts declined to
include a number of those proposed by the minority. Senator Rockefeller,
however, subsequently sent them along over his own signature.

This is precisely the strategy described in the Rockefeller staff
memo: "Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to
major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by
administration officials....[And] prepare to launch an independent
investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to
usefully collaborate with the majority. The best time to do so will
probably be next year."

By implementing this strategy, the minority staff - and perhaps
others in the Senate's Democratic ranks - have already undermined the
non-partisan character of the Intelligence Committee. They have indeed set
the stage to "pull the trigger" on an investigation designed specifically to
go after the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary of State
John Bolton, two of the Bush Administration's most import loci of
intellectual horsepower, strategic vision and commitment to principled
security policies.

For this reason, the Bush Administration would be well-advised to
avoid this trap, as well. It should refuse to cooperate further with the
Committee's investigation - at least until, as Democratic Senator Zell
Miller put it last week "The ones responsible  be they staff or elected or
both - should be dealt with quickly and severely sending a lesson to all
that this kind of action will not be tolerated, ignored or excused. Heads
should roll!"

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington
and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.